Locomotive Wiki talk:Policies and guidelines
Proposed file use policy I've written Locomotive Wiki:Files. I'm not sure what to highlight brightest... I suppose I'll start with copyright. I've made the copyright section quite strict, but please note this is not retrospective. If this policy is introduced as is, the repercussions stated will apply from then on. This is a major change to how things have been working for all of this wikis life, so we'll ease into it. If introduced, however, this policy will allow superfluous images with obvious copyright water marks to be deleted soon thereafter. Just warning people that I plan to bring out the paring knife. Sources should be stated, and I don't see any issues there since doing that is quite simple. I have included a controversial section on quality. Self explanatory really... On the subject of memes, this policy-to-be actively forbids them from being uploaded due to recent community concerns. However, I've included an alternate way of displaying them, which users may wish removed. Either way, I'll probably create an essay to explain that method when I've got more time. Just keeps the clutter out of the policies. And yes, I know this is working backwards, but I feel like giving people a way of not actually uploading memes — or else memes will be uploaded for active discussions in the knowledge that they'll be deleted anyway. This is most frustrating for all concerned. There is no information on user page images since I am going to write, and propose, a user page policy at a later date. The file use policy covers all types of files. If introduced, this policy will make some small modifications to the deletion policy for consistency's sake. I hope I've covered everything, but please query for more info. If there's no replies here within a week, week ½, fortnight, or so I'll make this policy official. Otherwise, it stays on the drawing board until consensus is located. :) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 13:50, September 24, 2013 (UTC) :Oh, btw, if people would like to keep the nomenclature of having "policy" in the page name of a policy, then an alternative to "Files" would be "File use policy". I'm not saying that we'll keep doing this forever, but it's working fine currently. Starfleet Academy (Messages) 14:20, September 24, 2013 (UTC) ::The policy is good so far, and I do agree with the quality section as if you cannot see what is in the image, then there is no purpose for the image. I think we might want to start thinking about a section in the file use policy on galleries in articles. Too many pictures makes for too much scrolling, which might drive away our audience. The main idea I am thinking of is a maximum limit of images on the article itself (used to illustrate and display the locomotive) and all the other images should be moved to a subpage like Article Name'/'Gallery. On the 'how to add memes to discussions', I, personally don't like that part - mainly because memes do not belong in discussions - and they may be offensive to some. I think if you can't say it with words, then don't say it at all - as you don't know who you are offending with the meme you are posting, especially if you just find the meme on the internet and you don't fully understand it. 22:21, September 24, 2013 (UTC) :::The alt method of meme'ing, is history. Looking back on my rationale now, I cannot understand it. Since I cannot think of one thing to defend memes on wikis, you don't have to worry about my creating of a essay on the subject any time soon either. :::Your gallery subpage idea is good because it allows us to keep the focus of the articles mainly on their text, but also identification of the train. For those that would like another angle they could reach for the gallery subpage via a section in the article "See also" that has a link to PAGENAME/Gallery. (Guess what information will be added to the MoS soon?) I fork at the point of limiting the number of images: how about the half-way point of having the policy state that the fewest number of images should be used, and each image should be of significant difference to the previous? Starfleet Academy (Messages) 05:28, September 25, 2013 (UTC) ::::Update: I've re-engineered the page to cover what you said, and some of what I said. What do you think? Starfleet Academy (Messages) 07:04, September 25, 2013 (UTC) :::::The page seems complete, I can't think of anything else needed (I must have filed all my ideas away (I know, I know - I'm sorry - I had to)). On the maximum images in articles, my viewpoint (which is not set in stone) is that if you don' cap it, then there is no point in having a separate gallery subpage, as the editor will put all the images on the main article and the admin won't know what to transfer to the subpage. However, I am open to your idea on saying less is best, and it should work, with the admin filing the similar photos away in the gallery subpage. :) 09:00, September 25, 2013 (UTC) (Reset indent) These policies are always fluidic — as much as it would be nice to get it right the first time. On limits: I hear you, and I agree. However, if it looks too hard to make an article here, people might take the path of least resistance and bail before the station. (sorry!) Another thing to consider, is that Wookieepedia, arguably the biggest Wikia wiki, doesn't mention number of images per article anywhere as far as I'm aware. But they're a bit deletion and blocking happy, so possibly not the best example... I know this is semantics, but the number of images and the gallery subpages don't solely require admins to police them. Pipe dream? xD This is all relative; we can alter this if it becomes a problem and/or we can preemptively fix it as the wiki grows. :) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 15:03, September 25, 2013 (UTC) :I'll mostly leave the policy works to the admins from now on. That is your jobs, after all. From that, you should know I trust your decisions, and that includes all the admins on here. From what I can tell, you're all pretty united on policies, and seems pretty mature about it. I'd like to say that I agree with just about everything here. Just be careful with how original photos people are allowed to upload. We don't want an image hooting site. I've made sure not oversteps boundaries, be it on my personal page or in a page gallery. I'll probably delete my source images since that has been continuously outdated every weekend since the picture was taken. Every weekend, mom and I grab a liberal amount of free magazines from the local model railroad museum, but don't worry, we leave a donation ;) AltoonaRailfan (talk) 19:28, September 25, 2013 (UTC) ::It's nice to be so trusted. :) Off-topic images are already covered by the deletion policy — off-topic user page images aren't covered yet, but soon will be. Those I will limit, for the reason you outlined. Anyway, that is a discussion back from the future of week or so. Oh, dear! Creating a workable policies and guidelines system is a long and arduous process; made exponentially larger by having to do them all at once... *grumble* Starfleet Academy (Messages) 05:09, September 26, 2013 (UTC) :::Live: I've made Locomotive Wiki:File use policy an official policy. :) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 08:26, October 3, 2013 (UTC) Proposing needed policies and guidelines Since proposing an already written policy went reasonably well above, although I encourage more to get involved, I'm going to propose a bunch of wanted policies that I'll get around to writing in the course of the following discussion. I'll list all those I'm going to start writing below, but please make any suggestions you want; I'll probably need them! ;) Sorry I'm bombarding you with many at once, but otherwise it's going to be a rather slow process — that or many successive edits. Civility This policy would expand upon the old adage, if you haven't got anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. The concept is based on WP:CIVIL, but hopefully I'll be capable of writing LW's version without consulting that. Otherwise be afraid. Be very afraid. Consensus Ah, where would wikis be without this policy, eh? Instead of having voting, which may cause factions to form, consensus is about reaching a balance. Therefore pleasing everybody not just the majority. After all, the majority may be fools. Even editing is consensus according to WP:CON — and I tend to agree — since consensus is when an article stops being edited so frequently for a period. There's a general agreement that the article is as close to perfect as any editors who have seen it can make it at that time. For discussions, consensus is jaw-jaw; striking a balance to turn opposition into apposition. Yes, this means convincing others with a reason for why you don't like that! Under a consensus model, if you want an article to progress, any step forward is good. Otherwise nothing happens. Consensus is the antonym of "edit war"; thus creating a "Edit war policy" (at this stage) would be tantamount to rewriting a consensus policy in the negative. Be bold This guideline would encourage new users to make edits, especially major edits, if they see an opportunity, rather than feel that it would be wrong to do so. If users weren't bold, wikis wouldn't exist in the first place. This would have some provisos, however, and wouldn't overwrite consensus. Neither would it condone edit wars. Neutral point of view This policy would remove any bias from the articles, or make adding it "illegal". You've probably just said, "So you wanna stifle free speech, do ya?" The answer is no. In fact, quite the opposite since bias includes too much positivity and not enough researching the dark side of an article's subject. If there's a silver lining to dark clouds, there's a lightning storme at the center of fluffy white ones. To find both, is the job of wiki-editors. NPOV would explain the necessity of doing this. Notability This guideline could be our "content" policy. Since we're on a single, narrow topic, it should be noted that some wikis sometimes have "content" policies. It should also be noted that many of those are about a fiction work, not a non-fiction topic like ours, but still. Dictating what is and what is not allowed in the mainspace would be a mistake I'd reckon. We could frighten some one who would otherwise have added something really interesting on a (most) closely related subject that would add to LW. Or at the very least we would have lost a new contributor. Generally speaking, based on the concept of WP:NOTE, this guideline would ask whether subject is notable enough to warrant a separate article, whether subject is widely talked about outside the wiki, and whether it is necessary to have subject in an encyclopedia. A unique question for LW would be whether an individual locomotive is notable enough to necessitate a separate article, rather than just include it in a class article. I don't believe we want John's Rocket of John and Sons timber mill. On the subject of a content policy, I won't be writing one myself unless asked. Feel free to propose one, though. What I will be doing, however, is rewriting Locomotive Wiki:About to make it more helpful, but most importantly I'll include an "Aim" section to explain why Locomotive Wiki exists and what its purpose is. IMHO, this is where we'll limit the information to locomotives and selected of their related subjects only. If any user fails to follow this, citing there's nothing against it in the rules, we can say it's on the cover, matey. True, you shouldn't judge a book by its cover, as it were, but you sure as hickory know what the subject is from that cover. What Locomotive Wiki is not This policy would address what has no place on LW. This is based on the concept of WP:NOT, and would include several of those headings. A few examples would be: Locomotive Wiki is not censored, Locomotive Wiki is not an anarchy, Locomotive Wiki is not a democracy, Locomotive Wiki is not a bureaucracy and Locomotive Wiki is not compulsory which are my favorites I must admit. I would also add others like Locomotive Wiki is not a depository and Locomotive Wiki is not a mirror. Yes, I've broken them up, but I wish to make a more single-edged statement. Also, a lot of what is in WP:NOT is already covered by Wikia's TOUs. Copyright policy Yeah, I know, but it will be needed. The title is self explanatory, and the content will have to follow copyright law so it's not like I can go off script. Citation policy With the goal of avoiding LW becoming a laughing stock (again), a common-sense approach to encouraging users to cite the sources of their claims would go along way. Pretty standard stuff: if an editor cannot state where they got the information from, then a maintenance template gets added. (This article does not have any sources. You can help Locomotive Wiki by...) I'm proposing this as a policy because it would be a combination of WP:V (policy) and WP:CITE (guideline). I will not be suggesting inline citations in the policy at the moment because the Visual Editor — you all know I dislike it, here's why — makes adding inline citations difficult for most users, and they're quickly destroyed when somebody backspaces the jigsaw piece (coded reference) by accident. User pages Firstly, I'd like to make it clear that I'm not comfortable with controlling what people want to put on their profile. My objection to fascist profile legislation, is that if people don't like it then they don't have to read it. However, I do see the need of a guideline to avoid (too many?) off-topic images, web hosting, blogs ( excepted, of course) and a few others maybe. I think I'll take cues on this one especially, because I'd like to say, "it's 'your' corner Locomotive Wiki; without spending all your time on it, make something awesome!" In most cases, Wikia's TOUs cover anything too bad, so we won't need much here. Administrators With a few basic modifications and additions, I would like to convert this to a policy. Amongst other things, I read this back when I first became an admin; what a big mistake that was... Ignore all rules Rules are for chumps. I plan to add WP:IGNORE, possibly inclusive of some ideas from a Wikipedia essay explaining WP:IGNORE. Discussion Since I've created a message with subheadings, *shakes head in disgust*, I should create a clear place for people to add to it. Plus, this gives me more opportunity to keep rambling on. You may have noticed that many of these are policies, not guidelines. Including what we've already got, these are all... yes... all the policies and guidelines we need, and all of them address a pre-existing or recently created problem. In the future, more policies and guidelines may well be created but the focus should be on the content, not bureaucratic nonsense. Most guidelines should be about helping users to avoid common mistakes, especially if those mistakes upset the community, so we'll probably come to those as they arise. These are the bare minimum to stop users from being mistreated, and to avoid LW becoming a free-for-all. I do hope I've thought of everything, but if I haven't I'll come back begging with my tail between my legs babbling on about the one I forgot. Well, that's my evil plan to take over the Universe; I hope it meets expectations. Starfleet Academy (Messages) 06:20, October 8, 2013 (UTC) :I'm going to jump in first to comment. :;Civility :A Civil community is a good community, and is something LW needs. I'm not afraid (or very afraid of that matter). Civility is easy to get a grasp of and is something this community needs to adopt (This would be the first one to write - if you had to choose one) after recent outbursts from someone who can't accept a block *cough* :;Consensus :Community Consensus is one of the most powerful things a wiki can use. Editing consensus seems straightforward and doesn't appear to be a con as Wikipedia would make it out to be. On edit wars - in the case of an edit war - the community needs to make the executive decision on whether a revision can be deemed right. This would happen on a talkpage and would require both parties to present evidence of the fact they are trying to (un)publish. On community discussions - the way I look at it (i.e. I agree with you) - you can agree or sit on the fence without giving a reason but the moment you disagree - you need to give a reason - otherwise your vote doesn't count as you need to tell the person ho has put forward this idea what is wrong with it - why you disagree. :;Be bold :The be bold guideline would be something that should be placed on the welcome message along with other guidelines of sorts to encourage these new users to edit wherever they think it is needed - no matter what they think. It should also say that it doesn't matter if the information you write turns out to be false, as someone else can and will fix it. :;Neutrality :I agree with this. You can even think of this like a voting system. A Neutral article tells you information about a subject informs you without criticizing or glorifying overly. A "biased towards" article looks like a fanpage and makes the readers think this is a fansite where all users do is post what they think is great about a subject - which detracts from the content and gives new users the wrong impression. The "biased against" article looks exactly the opposite - like a hatepage which not only detracts from the content - it could cause rant from disgruntled railway users who may not be civil in criticizing the subject of the article. :;Notability :I personally think notability should be the subject of consensus - the community should have a say in whether an article is notable enough to warrant a separate page. Personally - I think that articles on individual locomotive are not necessary unless a locomotive is really well known or the only still operating in that class (and even then it should be accommodated into a section of the class's page if possible(if short enough)). Yargh - it ain't on the cover matey - it be on the blurb. :;What LW is not :Locomotive Wiki isn't a lot of things it would seem. I think - if it isn't in the TOU and it is needed - then into the pot it goes. :;Copyright Policy :I don't even think I need to comment on this - copyright laws are already in use, they need to be applied and anything that violates these laws can be deleted :;Citation policy :This could even be folded into the manual of style - as it is a feature that is recommended on most articles - and should be used. Ah - my old nemesis - the visual editor. The jigsaw piece is annoying. Source mode is much easier - and in the end it doesn't matter if you put inline citations in because the sources are still down the bottom of the page at the end of the day. :;User page policy :The way I see it - a profile should be easy to read (i.e. not a complete biography of your life and times), not too many images (off-topic that is*), It should not be offensive to or be used to degrade a user or anything that breaches other policies that apply to it. Otherwise a profile page should have whatever a user wants to put on it :*Off topic images - There needs to be a limit (max. 6 perhaps) because at the end of the day, LW is a encyclopedia - not a file repository. Instructions on how to display images on your userpage without having to upload them to LW would be good as well - as it really degrades the content of a wiki when you see off topic images in the images module on the right rail :;Administrators :This page should - if it is a policy - Be renamed User rights policy and detail some of the things user rights should not be used for so as to not have anymore cases of user rights abuse. The current Administrators page should change to become a sort of repository and help centre so that new users know where to find help and how to get this help as well as covering all users with rights - whatever those rights may be. (That is just a suggestion, otherwise these two pages could be folded into one page - whichever you like) :;Ignore all rules :Rules are made to be broken but breaking a rule should not result in a hardline "I'm going to block you" sort of way. The user who broke the rule should be notified of their mistake and advised on how not to break it. :In summary - I support all the policies so far - whenever you feel the urge to type, type, type - go ahead and write them - there is no rush at all, even if you think there is. :) 07:41, October 8, 2013 (UTC) ::*Civility ::**I agree this is a good one to start with. That sounded nasty, are you OK? ::*Notability ::**Ah, you're talking about SPLITting, right? Yes, I would have thought a discussion would take place before that—and this information can be included in the page. However, we'll still have to have some ground "rules" in place if the individual loco comes first. ::*Citations ::**Yes, but... the MoS is really for style, for how it's done. I would include information on how to layout citations in the MoS, but the page (strongly) suggesting that you cite your sources would be LW:Citation policy. Or would it: could this just be a guideline? It is in the over-glorified Wikipedia's policies and guidelines. Then again, as I said above, they have WP:Verifiability we don't. ::*User page ::**Query: You used "policy", are you suggesting it be a policy? Yeah, that's right: a user's profile is not the primary contribution to any wiki, the content is. So naturally it shouldn't be that large. On the topic of off-topic images, I was going to say 4. Whether it be 4 or 6, makes little difference to me. However, even NUMBEROF''ACTIVE''USERS x 4 images equals... (This would use #expr and update automatically, but I don't want to disable the RTE here.) ::*Administrators (User rights policy) ::**Now that is tempting! LW:User rights policy: Support. Making Locomotive Wiki:Administrators a get help page would be cool, and make sense. ::*Breaking rules (IAR) ::**I agree. If you truly , then a discussion afterward the "bad" edit shouldn't be too difficult. ::*Clarification ::**When I wrote that above, I had forgotten about Locomotive Wiki:Copyrights. This probably means, that that page will be the "Copyright policy" eventually. We'll see. ::I am probably rushing. ;) I just want a solid base for users to stand on ASAP. Not that I'm rushing the discussions; they're open-ended if replies are taken. They should really be so if no replies are taken, but for the greater good... Oh, xD Starfleet Academy (Messages) 08:54, October 8, 2013 (UTC) :::*Civility :::**Well, I wasn't trying to be nasty - I didn't think it sounded nasty, I was just disagreeing (or at least pretending to disagree) with your equally nastily sounding comment. As for my mood, I'm fine except for the exams I have in a few weeks. :::*Notability :::**That was what I was thinking. If there is enough information in an article on a particular locomotive in the class, then it can form a separate page if it is widely known. On ground rules, some rules would be obvious; no fictional locomotives, no stations, etc. Otherwise it should come down to a community consensus. :::*Citation :::**I would personally prefer this to be a guideline over a policy. I think that you shouldn't need to (but you should try to put one in where possible) cite a source for your article. If an article has no sources, a maintenance tag should be placed on the page. However, I do think that if you are asked to provide a source to prove certain bits of information, you need to, otherwise if the edits can be proven false, they should be removed. :::*User Pages :::**When I said policy, I was meaning a loose policy - one where it doesn't matter overly if you break it, and it is up to the admin to make the better judgement. Your calculation is assuming, of course, that every user is going to put 4 or 6 images on their userpage, which in reality, is probably not true. :::The other two parts don't really warrant a response. Well, that's my view of policies and guidelines ::: 20:25, October 8, 2013 (UTC) ::::Nastiness: Oh, no at all. To the contrary, I was referring to your cough. *grin* My bad. Good luck with those exams. ::::*Citation ::::**Your right. (I knew I'd fail to see the wood for the trees at some point.) How about this possible solution: Citation policy, becomes "Cite your sources" and we ignore WP:V for now? ::::*User pages ::::**OK, I'd say we're on the same page here. I did have this as a policy at some stage; I changed it into a guideline in light of WP:USER. Possibly Wikipedia can afford to be a tad more liberal than us. Oh, and you do realize I subscribe to the theory breaking policy is not a death sentence? ::::Btw, Gavin's Third Law: If there's a way I can accidentally up a conversation, I'll achieve it. ;) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 05:36, October 9, 2013 (UTC) :::::*User pages :::::**On the limit: If you give them an inch... No, your right: 6 sounds nicer. Starfleet Academy (Messages) 05:47, October 9, 2013 (UTC) (Reset indent) My cough was to allude to something in an indirect way without sounding nasty. Obviously that plan worked seamlessly... Thanks for the luck, I am getting stressed and not feeling myself (School Certificate does that to you). Userpage - I think users should be able to have some freedom (6 is about right), as the less images you let them put on a userpage, the more complaints you'll receive. Citation - "Cite your sources" sounds good (for a guideline (which this should be)). 07:22, October 9, 2013 (UTC) :I stuffed it up by being mischievous then. Sorry. Anyway, everything's seems good with the outline. I'll message back when I write the first of these. Starfleet Academy (Messages) 07:57, October 9, 2013 (UTC) ::I've created the first (incomplete) draft for Locomotive Wiki:Civility (discuss). If you have anything to add, it can be here or on the new policy's talk page. It's up to . :) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 09:35, October 16, 2013 (UTC) :::The first draft seems ok, I honestly cannot think of anything else, although a small section on user conduct would be nice... :) 19:45, October 16, 2013 (UTC) ::::As I said, it's incomplete. It should have a section on "Dealing with uncivil users", couldn't that be a User Conduct section? especially since we've already got Wikia's TOUs? :) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 07:08, October 17, 2013 (UTC) :::::I fully understood that it was incomplete (technically everything is on a wiki, but anyway) Dealing with uncivil users should be in the page, but the user conduct section should be a basic "this isn't civil, refrain from this" list (which would include the misdemeanors such as swearing, rudeness, bullying etc... Otherwise it's fairly complete. 08:17, October 17, 2013 (UTC) (Reset indent) I was just grumbling I hadn't got more done; I wasn't getting defensive. ;) I was going to avoid adding a list to this policy due to the problems associated. But we can just "regulate" it; I keep looking a little too far ahead and a little too optimistically I think. :P Starfleet Academy (Messages) 09:20, October 17, 2013 (UTC) :I'm not meaning an exhaustive list, just a very, very basic list (but if you don't feel a list is needed, don't put one in) :) 20:09, October 17, 2013 (UTC) ::I have expanded LW:CIVIL. I don't believe I've written your user conduct bit very well, please rewrite it if it wasn't what you had in mind. Starfleet Academy (Messages) 08:08, October 18, 2013 (UTC) :::Update: I've made the policy official. I have been still um'ing and ah'ing about the "Types of incivility" section, but mostly I just hadn't got around to finishing this one off. Onto the next one at some point... I'll let you know. Starfleet Academy (Messages) 05:55, November 17, 2013 (UTC) I've typed up a draft for the user page policy. It is basic in the extreme, with no section headings at all and I would be very happy making it official as such. I fully intended for it to be half the size, but it is currently about as brief as possible. I am quite uncomfortable even having this policy, so don't expect me to defend it much. There are a few things in there that I wish I didn't have to spell out, but if it ain't written in black and white... Starfleet Academy (Messages) 11:49, February 27, 2014 (UTC) :I've forgotten to add the information about how to get images on without uploading them, haven't I? OK, that means it will be double the size of the page... wait just a minute! (This time I am truly cutting a joke in half.) Since this is something that could be used in other situationswhat? could we create ? and place the information in one spot and reference that info in multiple policies? and discussions? I think I'll do that... hooray! I actually understand why wikis create their own help pages now! :) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 13:06, February 27, 2014 (UTC) ::After 10000 years of scrolling, I've finally reached the discussion :). Yeah, I agree with you here mate. The userpage policy is the most intrusive, but if it isn't there, people are going cite that as an excuse. You've covered everything I can possibly think of. O hotlinking, I think I'll let you do what you want with that — that is when you know what you're going to do about it. :) :::ikr, this talk page is about double the size of our largest article! To brush hotlinking out of the way; I do this all the time, I get a list of important things to do and suddenly there are little pet projects jumping on the list. I'll do the hotlinking thing either at midnight someday, or after the anniversary. I'm going to move onto the next policy now, and in a week the UP policy will be official. (Yay! to making up for wasted time...) ;) Starfleet Academy (Messages) 05:44, February 28, 2014 (UTC) I've written the first draft of Locomotive Wiki:Copyrights -- enjoy :P Starfleet Academy (Messages) 09:17, February 28, 2014 (UTC) :I've written Locomotive Wiki:Notability. I have departed slightly from when I proposed this policy and said: “Generally speaking, based on the concept of WP:NOTE, this guideline would ask whether subject is notable enough to warrant a separate article, whether subject is widely talked about outside the wiki, and whether it is necessary to have subject in an encyclopedia. A unique question for LW would be whether an individual locomotive is notable enough to necessitate a separate article, rather than just include it in a class article. I don't believe we want John's Rocket of John and Sons timber mill.” — The Visionary; October 8, 2013 What I failed to consider, was that how are we really going to "outlaw" the adding of locomotives that are simply unknown? I have written the guideline from a different angle: “... an unknown locomotive from an unknown coal mine may have its own article because it would otherwise mean adding an article on the coal mine, which is obviously outside the scope of the Wiki.” — Locomotive Wiki:Notability I know this raises the possibility of LW gaining a load of stubs, but it also gives LW a separate identity, rather than looking like a excerpt of a Wikipedia category. Starfleet Academy (Messages) 08:05, March 3, 2014 (UTC)